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Edit: I see that the following comment may invalidate mine. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3463292 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3463292 Minor poin

Edit: I see that the following comment may invalidate mine. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3463292 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3463292 Minor point: > Congress is constrained to grant this right only in service of a specific purpose. namely, to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, and only "for limited times". This is not exactly what I read it. I understood that the congress can grant monopolies to promote Arts and Science. Nothing more, nothing less. It doesn't explicitly forbid the congress to use those monopolies for other purposes. Nor does it say anything about the case where granting monopolies doesn't promote Art and Science at all, by the way. Now if it can be established that such monopolies hinders other rights described in the constitution, then you are correct: they can only be used to promote Art and Science. And if we could further establish that those monopolies do not actually promote Art and Science, then it may be unconstitutional to use them at all.

lisper 15y ago
> It doesn't explicitly forbid the congress to use those monopolies for other purposes. What forbids Congress to use those monopoly grants for other purposes is the doctrine of enumerated powers.
- anamax 15y ago
  > What forbids Congress to use those monopoly grants for other purposes is the doctrine of enumerated powers. Except that said doctrine is mostly dead, thanks to the commerce clause, an expansive definition of "interstate", and "promote the general welfare".
  - tomjen3 15y ago
    What? The Constitution gives the government the right to legislate to promote the general welfare? So they could compel people, with the treat of prison time, to exercise and eat healthy?
kalleboo 15y ago
I had to look up "useful Arts" in wikipedia, because Lady Gaga doesn't sounds like what the founders would have considered "useful" to me. In the clause, the phrase "useful Arts" is meant to reference inventions, while "Science" is meant to reference human knowledge, including that which is encompassed in literature and the "fine arts". It's interesting that we've interpreted "Science" to mean all of these things. If you were to take the constitution more literally, it would seem that a lot of things that are covered by copyright today oughtn't be, and that copyright would require a system similar to what patent law has today.

lisper 15y ago

> It doesn't explicitly forbid the congress to use those monopolies for other purposes. What forbids Congress to use those monopoly grants for other purposes is the doctrine of enumerated powers.

anamax 15y ago
> What forbids Congress to use those monopoly grants for other purposes is the doctrine of enumerated powers. Except that said doctrine is mostly dead, thanks to the commerce clause, an expansive definition of "interstate", and "promote the general welfare".
- tomjen3 15y ago
  What? The Constitution gives the government the right to legislate to promote the general welfare? So they could compel people, with the treat of prison time, to exercise and eat healthy?

kalleboo 15y ago

I had to look up "useful Arts" in wikipedia, because Lady Gaga doesn't sounds like what the founders would have considered "useful" to me. In the clause, the phrase "useful Arts" is meant to reference inventions, while "Science" is meant to reference human knowledge, including that which is encompassed in literature and the "fine arts". It's interesting that we've interpreted "Science" to mean all of these things. If you were to take the constitution more literally, it would seem that a lot of things that are covered by copyright today oughtn't be, and that copyright would require a system similar to what patent law has today.